Posts Tagged Christmas

Christmas is a season that now comes pre-packaged with critiques of capitalism and consumerism. Although carefulness and concern over hyper-consumerism is always appropriate, in our desperate efforts to disassociate ourselves with Black Friday materialism, too often we push too far, yielding to a creeping dualism that’s unproductive for our economic culture and hazardous to Christmas cheer.

Again, critiques of a “festival of consumerism” are on target in certain respects, but by taking us through a variety of Stevens’s “carols,” Amyx demonstrates how Stevens falls into the trap of taking these themes too far.

Her conclusion: (1) “he confuses the market economy with consumerism,” and (2) “he elevates the spiritual above the material.”

As she goes on to explain:

Stevens seems to hold that capitalism is evil because it necessitates materialistic consumerism. But he misunderstands the difference between consumerism and the market economy…When the goodness of the material is lost, capitalism is an easy scapegoat for consumerism.

Stevens’s misconception of capitalism also reflects a broader theological underpinning of all material things, reminiscent of ancient Gnosticism and some modern evangelical movements today. He claims Christmas should be about the spiritual aspects—what we feel and known inside—not material traditions…

Stevens wisely critiques the worthlessness of placing one’s hope solely in the material aspect of Christmas, but he misses a great opportunity to distinguish between worship of the material and worship of God through the material. He fails to point out the goodness that physical things can bring at Christmastime. Advent candles, nativity sets, presents, Christmas lights and ornaments need not distract us from Christ, but exist as physical reminders that lead us to worship Christ…

…Stevens’s Christmas message is one of massive spiritual and material discord, yet Advent embodies spiritual and material harmony that God intended for the world—and that’s the redemptive beauty in all the silver and gold adorning your Christmas tree.

We like to call it “consumer culture” (most often with an “evil” at the beginning). People are standing in lines for petty products, spending money they don’t have, and passing out extensive wish lists and catalogs to friends and family. On the surface, it appears to be a spectacle of shallowness and shortsightedness. Buy, buy, buy! Sell, sell, sell! It’s all so terrible, isn’t it?

For some, it most certainly is, but for most of us, consumerism isn’t so much a sign of our materialism as it is a representation that we rely on things for survival and pleasure. In this understanding, it would seem that our consumer culture isn’t such a bad thing at all, particularly around Christmastime, when much of our buying is concerned with the interests of others. Through this lens, is there anything healthy to be found in the bustling consumeristic spirit of the holidays?

In Carden’s approach, the Grinch’s disapproval of Whoville’s holiday joyfulness could represent any number of private-sector resentments, but the parallel that seemed clearest to me was with the government’s disapproval of our financial decision making.

Here’s a little taste:

On Christmas Eve Night, the Grinch went to town
He stole all the presents, he took their wreaths down
He stole their Who Hash, everything for their feast!
He swiped their Who Pudding! He swiped their Roast Beast!
He looked at his sled loaded up with Who snacks
‘Twas quite an efficient Pigovian tax!
Then late in the night, when he got to Mount Crumpit
For he’d taken the load, and he threatened to dump it
The Whos, with one voice crying out in the night
Screamed “bring back our stuff! You haven’t the right

At the end, Carden sums up his point effectively, pointing out that economic value need not (only) come from the material realm:

The holiday season brings specials galore
They teach us that Christmas can’t come from a store
Reflect, as you watch them, as day turns to night
On good economics, and property rights.